Choosing Real-Time Market Data Feeds for US Equities
Summary
The document collects suggestions for real-time market data sources for a US equity strategy that is not high-frequency and already consumes normalized data from major financial vendors. Responses name a range of providers and channels, including CQG, DTN, eSignal, Kinetick, TradingPhysics, Sungard’s MarketMap, NYSE market data services, and direct exchange or alternative-venue feeds. They describe offerings ranging from bars to full order-book data, with some services also covering futures and options.
The evidence is anecdotal: contributors report prior use or offer recommendations, rather than presenting a systematic comparison or reliability measurements. One answer specifically cautions that data quality and API design vary widely across providers. The list is therefore a starting point for evaluating feed options, not a current endorsement or a guarantee of reliability, coverage, normalization, or suitability. The document does not explain how to test feeds or compare latency, completeness, and uptime.
Key ideas
- The responses suggest vendor, exchange, and alternative-venue feeds as possible sources for US equity data.
- Some providers offer data from bars through full order books, with additional futures and options coverage mentioned.
- The recommendations are based on individual experience and are not a comparative reliability study.
- Data quality and API design may differ substantially between providers.
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Full text
# What sources would you recommend for Real Time Market Data other than Bloomberg/Reuters? # What sources would you recommend for Real Time Market Data other than Bloomberg/Reuters? I am dealing with a strategy that is not high-frequency based. The strategy consumes normalized data from Bloomberg and Reuters. For US equity market, can someone recommend some real-time data sources - other than Bloomberg/Reuters/IB - that are known to be reliable? By the way, subscription cost is not an issue. ## Answer by Matt Wolf (score 6) https://quant.stackexchange.com/a/4851 What sources? What about: - CQG - Telvent DTN - NXCore (though it caters to high frequency trading) - Esignal - Kinetick - all direct exchange feeds - all direct alternative venue feeds - various otc fx feeds Those are that come to mind for now. Please be aware the quality of the data and API design varies widely among the ones I mentioned. ## Answer by SRKX (score 5) https://quant.stackexchange.com/a/4848 I used to work in a hedge fund who was using different software from Sungard. We use one of their software which had an embedded data stream for live trading purposes, but I think there is a product in which you might be more interested: MarketMap. MarketMap has a whole UI and different tools for analysis, but I think you're looking for something you can also access from an API. You'll have to contact Sungard about that, but I remember that MarketMap was not very expensive and quite good. ## Answer by emcor (score 2) https://quant.stackexchange.com/a/12849 This Excel addin is rather simplistic, but its free and easy, I use it privately in Excel: https://pmstockquote.codeplex.com/ ## Answer by Steve Severance (score 0) https://quant.stackexchange.com/a/4857 We have used TradingPhysics and been happy with them. They offer a variety of feeds from bars to full orderbook data. The also offer futures, options, consolidated orderbook, etc... ## Answer by tagoma (score 0) https://quant.stackexchange.com/a/4883 If you trade on the US equity market, one option is to subscribe right to the market data services of NYSE Euronext. ## Answer by Jack Anderson (score -1) https://quant.stackexchange.com/a/18409 Check out Barchart Ondemand, they just released a Free market data api and they offer real-time and delayed market data apis... I would test out their api http://freemarketdataapi.barchartondemand.com before. I'm currently using it and its very easy to use.
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